(CNN) The memorial service marking 26 years since the Oklahoma City bombing, coming just months after the insurrection at the Capitol, had the potential to focus attention on the continuities between the far-right extremism behind both the 1995 bombing and this year's insurrection.

The new attorney general -- Merrick Garland -- was the ideal person to speak at the memorial: he worked on the prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers, and in his recent confirmation hearings, vowed to not only prioritize the investigations into the insurrection, but to focus on the extremism behind it.

Garland, however, was not the only speaker at the event. Though he praised Garland's work on the case and acknowledged the tragedy of the loss of human life that day, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt also slid in a bit of grievance politics. "There are groups that refuse to listen to another point of view," he grumbled before slyly referencing one of the right's current hobby horses, liberal cancel culture. "They try to cancel anyone who sees the world differently."

His comments may not seem so over-the-top. But they come at a time when some on the right are rewriting extremism as legitimate grievance, driven not by far-right ideologies but liberal actions and ideas (and, in some cases, arguing that right-wing violence is actually conducted by leftists in disguise). Even as the rubble was smoldering in Oklahoma City in 1995, similar claims were being made on the right.

It has, in fact, been a major challenge to understanding and addressing right-wing extremism over the past quarter century: when incidents of right-wing violence occur, the right tries to deflect and derail, rather than joining efforts to take on extremist threats.

But part of the problem was that members of Congress had connections with the militias, too.

Representatives who came into office as part of the 1994 Republican landslide, like Idaho's Helen Chenoweth and Texas's Steve Stockman, found themselves on the defensive as journalists explored their alleged radical ties. Soon after the bombing, Stockman had to distance himself from the far right when his office received a faxed "first update" on the bombing from an anti-government activist's office; Stockman denied knowing the woman who sent it.

After the bombing, Chenoweth tried to shift focus to what she saw as the validity of the militias' underlying arguments, urging Congress to "look at the public policies that may be pushing people too far." When an Idaho paper suggested she was "quickly becoming the poster child" for the militias, she called the criticism "outrageous and grotesque and incredibly cynical," and continued to press for some of the militia movement's pet causes, from the repeal of the assault weapons ban to requiring federal agents to get written permission from local authorities in order to operate in an area.

In part, as a result of some Republican hesitance to denounce militias too harshly, the congressional hearings into the growing militia movement wound up highlighting, even glorifying the militias by allowing them to present themselves as regular Americans defending their basic freedoms.

Though the administration clarified immediately that they did not mean programs like Limbaugh, he nonetheless used the moment to indulge in grievance politics. "I believe the people who have been ranting and raving about starving schoolchildren, calling those people involved in legitimate political dialogue 'extremists,' are in fact promoters of paranoia and purveyors of hate and divisiveness," he said, adding that "anyone who uses Oklahoma City for political purposes should incur the wrath of the American people and be voted out of office."

And it makes sense that he and others on the right did so. Because the militia movement passed through the porous boundaries between the Republican Party, the conservative movement and the violent fringe, many Republicans felt the need to soft-pedal their criticism.

Republican officeholders and conservative pundits erupted, arguing that the report, which discussed the vulnerability of returned veterans to recruitment by extremist groups, reflected the administration's anti-military bias.

That's why, while Stitt's words at the memorial may sound like an offhand attempt to insert culture wars commentary into a moment of serious reflection, they are worth taking seriously: they are part of a long trend on the right of using grievance politics to undermine efforts to tackle extremism, rather than working to address and dismantle that threat.

Source: CNN

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